


a empire (for you, for two)

by surrenderer



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: 8x01, F/M, Missing Scene, Political!Jon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-21
Updated: 2019-09-21
Packaged: 2020-10-25 12:28:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,222
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20724203
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/surrenderer/pseuds/surrenderer
Summary: He is a Stark and he’ll remain so, if she has anything to say about it.(Or, Sansa and Jon, behind closed doors.)





	a empire (for you, for two)

**Author's Note:**

> Takes place between Jon and Daenerys arriving in Winterfell and The Reveal.
> 
> Title from "Empire" by Of Monsters and Men.

“What do you think I’ve been trying to do?” he finally shouts at her. Sansa doesn’t flinch, as much as she wants to. This is _ Jon_, this is not Joffrey or Ramsay or even Petyr. Jon would never hurt her. “All I’ve done, I’ve done it to keep you safe. To keep all of us safe. I don’t… I don’t do things simply for the sake of making you angry, Sansa.”

No, that was when they were children, when they had the luxury of not clinging to each other like they were the last Starks in Westeros. Back when they had time, and safety, and peace, where a boy could cover himself with flour for no reason other than to scare his siblings in the crypt.

Now, Jon does things because he thinks they’re _ honorable _ and _ just_, but Sansa knows better. Honor gets good men killed. There is no justice in the world unless you make it yourself.

“Do you love her?” she demands. It makes him pause and blink at her. Good. Let him be confused. Let him be angry, let him stew in her accusations, let him hear the betrayal in her voice. “If you love her, I would understand, Jon, I truly would, but what happens after the White Walkers? If we win, then what? I’m sorry, but the North will not accept a Targaryen ruler, no matter how much liberation she’s brought about in Essos, no matter how many slavers’ heads she may have cut off. We will not bow to the South again. I cannot ask it of the lords, and you cannot ask it of me.”

At least Jon has the presence of mind to look guilty, even if he can’t meet her eyes.

“We have to trust each other,” he says, sighing at the floor, and Sansa can’t look at him either now. For all that he is her brother, there are still too many years of distance between them to ever truly close the gap. But she has tried over the last few moons, ever since Castle Black, and the battles and sharing a tent as they rallied the North, and he’s tried too. They took back Winterfell together, they have rebuilt it stone by stone, with blood and tears and secret kisses in the night, and more nightmares than either of them can count. And if Sansa hears the whispers from the servants and the smallfolk, the ones that sound like _ Lord and Lady Stark come again_, she pretends she does not hear them.

Let them have their whispers, if it solidifies their loyalty to Jon, to her.

But this, this shocks her to her core. She did not think Jon would betray her for Daenerys Targaryen, no matter what Baelish whispered in her ear, and yet, here they are.

Sansa hates it when she’s wrong.

“I can’t trust you,” Sansa grits out, “if you don’t _ tell me _ your plans and intentions before putting them in place. I have done what I could since your raven, but I cannot say that the lords of the North are overjoyed to see you or _ her _ right now.” In fact, she’s already had to speak to Lords Glover and Manderly privately, for they and their peers crowned a Stark king and they demanded the right to continue to swear fealty to a Stark king. Or queen, but Sansa was quick to quell those whispers.

She does not blame them in the slightest, but once again, it is up to the Lady of Winterfell to keep the peace, before her lords break guest right from indignation alone. How is she to explain this to Jon when he simply doesn’t want to hear it?

“I’m sorry,” Jon finally says, eyes still on the floor. “I want to keep you safe. But we need her dragons, and her soldiers… and you told me I had to be smarter than Father and Robb… I don’t know how to play the game. But I’m trying, I’m _ trying_, Sansa, don’t you see?” And when he looks at her, despairing and hopeful at the same time, she _ does _ see.

Sansa’s breath catches in her throat. Of course. She _ had _ told him that, hadn’t she? And of course he couldn’t tell her, his ravens would’ve been intercepted easily from Dragonstone...

“But what about after?” she can’t help but ask. “If we win. _ When _ we win. Did you think that far, Jon? She won’t let you go so easily, not if you’ve laid such a velvet-lined trap for her. She thinks you love her.” It scares her, in all honesty. She will lose Jon to the South, and Stark men do not fare well in the South, least of all in King’s Landing. She cannot allow it, she _ will not _ allow it. But one wolf cannot fight against two dragons, even to protect a brother, and if Jon willingly succumbs to his queen’s touches, she doesn’t know if she can stand it.

Jon scrubs his hands across his face before reaching for hers. Sansa allows his fingers to curl around hers, a small sign that she's listening. A small sign that she trusts him now. “I know. I _ know_. I just. I didn’t know how else to do it. We need her armies. We need her dragons. And she looked at me like… like I was her next prize to be won, and it was inevitable that she would win in the end. And she’d be suspicious, if I wasn’t…”

If he wasn’t interested. If he was indifferent to her beauty and her power, the only man who may have ever been so. She may think he has something to hide, and he does, oh, he does, but it doesn’t matter now. He’s led danger to his own doorstep and now Sansa has to deal with the ramifications.

She knows, deep down, that Jon never meant for it to get this far. It doesn’t erase the sting of a woman scorned, and it doesn’t undo the political damage he’s laid at her feet, but knowing that Jon is still theirs, is still _ hers_, soothes her anger. She’s still upset and very much annoyed with him, but--

“She thinks you susceptible to her influence now, but it may be the other way around,” Sansa says carefully after a moment. It’s too much to hope that Daenerys Targaryen will release her claim on the North out of love for Jon Snow, not without claiming him in return. But Sansa has learned to always look at a problem three different ways. It will be much easier, knowing now that Jon has not completely lost his head over silver braids and _ fire and blood_.

He is a Stark and he’ll remain so, if she has anything to say about it.

“And of course, she cannot know that the wolves of Winterfell run only with their pack,” she adds gently, brushing her fingertips over his chest now that they are close enough to touch. His shirt is rough under her fingers and thick to stave off the winter cold, but she swears she can feel Jon’s heart pounding in his chest.

“No, she cannot,” he agrees, a grim look on his face despite the warmth of his hands when they touch her waist, and Sansa’s very soul howls in triumph.

**Author's Note:**

> [Come say hi.](https://part-timewonders.tumblr.com/)


End file.
